


love don't live here anymore

by morallyambiguous



Category: Naruto
Genre: BAMF! Sakura, Gen, Heroes AU, sort of, this is from like three years ago jsyk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-21
Updated: 2012-11-21
Packaged: 2017-11-19 05:26:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/569600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morallyambiguous/pseuds/morallyambiguous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She states this flippantly like it was usual to hate the person who provided for you, to hate your sensei-and-everything-else-important "I used to think: So what if Naruto and Sasuke were so strong I was still on your team, you owed me."</p>
            </blockquote>





	love don't live here anymore

He finds it strange that the last place he sees her is the old bridge—wood worn, and colors faded from the passage of time—where once his charges had waited for him on day after day, week after week.  _She was such a tiny thing, twelve and not all ready to take on the world,_ his mind supplies.  He can’t help but smile as he thinks about the obnoxious dress she used to wear.  ( _Not that Naruto had been much better, but the fact remains that the dress had been a eyesore.)_

But she’s nineteen now, and he feels like she’s a completely different person.  Maybe she is.  He doesn’t know, he never stayed long enough to find out.

_She grew her hair back out,_ his mind whispers and he wonders why he keeps focusing on the past when he knows that it will never be the same, that they’ll never be able to get that back.  But it’s true, the long candy-floss strands are pulled out of her face by a black ribbon, and the obnoxious red dress seems to have been put away for today.  He almost misses it.  _Today,_ he notes, _she’s all black leather and lace, three guns hidden under her clothes._ Three that he can see at least.  She’s grown up, and it aches like a phantom wound because the girl, no, the woman in front of him is not the Sakura he knew.

“Kakashi-san.”  Her voice interrupts the night.  “Long time no see.”  She doesn’t turn to face him and instead takes a long, steady drag from the cigarette in her hand.  He represses the urge to rip it from her hands.  It’s not his place, he lost that privilege a long time ago.

“That’ll kill you.”  He curves his only visible eye, but he’s not smiling.

She snorts.  “Not fucking lightly.”  She flicks ash off the edge of her cigarette and it hits the clear water.  He idly wonders if there’s something symbolic in that.  Iruka would be able to tell him.  Hell, Iruka would probably be dealing with this better.

“How are you?”  The words that sounded awkward in his mind, were even more awkward out loud.

“Oh, I’ve been better.  But I’ve got an actual teacher now, so it’s definitely an improvement.”  Her voice is flat, like she’s stating a fact; he wishes he could find it within himself to be angry, but despite their harshness the words ring true.  He wants to say.  “But I did teach you.”  He doesn’t though, because those words don’t ring true.  He focused on the boys and little Sakura, the only girl in their group fell to the wayside.

“I used to hate you, you know.”  She starts, but no, he doesn’t know, and he doesn’t know how the hell he missed it.  “I still do, actually, but back then it was a lot stronger.”  She states this flippantly.  Like it was normal to hate the person who provided for you, to hate your sensei-and-everything-else-important.  He was their caretaker, put in charge of three orphans and he’s sorry that he fucked up okay?  He’s sorry, but it’s not like he had been the picture of mental health himself.  But he doesn’t say that.  She wouldn’t listen, and a small part of him can’t blame her.

“I used to think: so what if Naruto and Sasuke were so strong, I was still on your team.  You _owed_ me.”  Her town is conversational, but the accusations are still there swimming just below the surface.

He wants to know why she’s called him here.  Why she had asked him to meet her after almost three years of no contact.  He feels that he’s not going to like the answer.  He could just invade her mind with the slowly turning wheel in his eye like she’s some sort of common criminal, but he can’t bring himself to.

“I use to look in the mirror and think: just because I’m not as strong, or fast, or as _fucking special_ as them doesn’t mean—doesn’t make me any less than them, right?”  She paused here, the metal under her fingers twisted like tree roots beneath her fingers.  “I manifested, right?  I could heal the sick, beat back death at its door.  That _had_ to count for something, right?”  She takes a deep breath, considers her cigarette.  She throws it into the water with a disgusted huff.  He head falls in to her hand, elbows resting on the gnarled metal railing, and she chuckles.  “And then Sasuke left.”

She turns to him.

He wishes she hadn’t.  Her eyes give him the same accusing stare that Obito and Rin haunt his dreams with, they look at once dead and wholly furious.  A shiver crawls down his spine.  Her fingers lands on his chest, his sternum fractures under the force.  “You pulled your disappearing act and left Naruto and I to fend for ourselves…”

She turns away, where she’s gripping the railing, the iron finally snaps.  “No one wants two orphans whose teacher has abandoned them, Kakashi-san.”  The sentence finishes itself in the still air, _not even themselves._

“We spent months trying to keep our heads above the water, Naruto and I.  Paying bills that you used to help us with.  And then Naruto had to leave, he ‘had to find Sasuke,’ had to ‘save Team 7,’ save our fucking ‘family.’  And I let him go, and that’s my fault, because I _believed_ in him.  We would be a ‘family’ again because Naruto could do anything.  Some ‘family’ we were.  Dysfunctional, violent, just a powder keg ready to fucking blow.  And I…”  She leans on what remains of the railing, head hanging low.  “I believed in him until it felt like my heart would burst.”

“But then I had to pay for myself, and I worked and I worked, and I _worked_ until I couldn’t tell the blood on my hands from my own and my enemies.  And the whole time I kept believing that Naruto would bring Sasuke back home, and you would come ambling in behind him, late as usual, and we would all be happy again.  What a fucking idiot I was.”  She scoffed.  Her hand reached for another cigarette, but she stopped herself, instead choosing to toy with the .45 automatic at her hip.

“Shishou, just after I manifested my second ability, told me so, and then in the same breath she asked me if I wanted to be her apprentice.”  She lifted her head and looked at him, her eyes were softer, but not because of any fondness for him.  He idly muses that the pain in his chest is actually his heart aching, and hot him just being world-weary and old.  She’s grown now, and she doesn’t need him or even really want him anymore, the knowledge burns even more than the fact that he failed.

“And she taught me.  She paid attention to me.  Do you know how food that felt?  How useful I felt?  Because for once in my life I felt like I was doing something right.”

She stands up straight, still and petite and pink as ever, but looking into her eyes, he feels like he’s the one who’s getting looked down on.  “And then, why don’t _you_ tell me what happened Kakashi.”

His shoulder drop.  “And then… Naruto died trying to bring Sasuke back.”  It’s his turn to be tired, his turn to sigh.  “Why did you ask me here if this is all we’re going to do?”

“I’m not done with my story, Kakashi.”  She steps forward so much that he has to completely drop his head to meet her eyes.  “Do you know had that news felt?  It felt like everything in my life had gone to waste.  The best of me belonged to him, and now he’s gone  Everything good about me is gone, Kakashi-sensei!”  If she notices her slip, she doesn’t address it, but he does and it twists the knife in his heart just a little bit more.  “So I’m leaving tonight, I’m going topside.  I’m going to find Sasuke.  I’m going to break every bone in his body, and then I’m going to bring him back here to face trial.”  The conviction in her voice is terrifying.

“Sakura…”

“Don’t ‘Sakura’ me, Kakashi-san.  Shishou’s going to ask you to join my team.”  The safety of a gun clicks off and he can feel the cold barrel against his trachea.  “You’re going to decline.  You’ve done enough to this team already.  We don’t need any more of your ‘help’.”  There are easily a dozen ways he can think of to disarm her, but he can’t bring himself to.

“I’m sorry.”  He whispers.  The words sound empty to him.

“No you’re not.  You’re not fucking sorry at all.”

The barrel falls from his neck and she turns on her heel.

“Goodbye, Kakashi-san.”

“Goodbye, Sakura.”


End file.
